Ed Chavez
August 26, 2008 
In the wild world of manga, every age group and every social class has their own genre and magazine that defines them. For the elementary school kid there are video game based properties like the ones that dominate Shogakukan’s Coro Coro magazine. Nothing says office lady like the melodramatic white-collar stories of Sobisha’s Office You. Yanki’s can use their middle school level reading skills to their fullest by reading Shonen Gahosha’s Young King. And for a 30-year-old full-time freelancer, like myself, there is only one magazine that can simultaneously inspire, entertain, and educate like Takeshobo’s Kindai Mahjong. And Kindai Mahjong does all of that every two weeks for a mere 380 yen; perfect for a person living column to column.
According to Takeshobo’s Kindai Mahjong, the legendary bi-weekly mahjong 
magazine, a full-time “freeter•bCrLf could possibly earn some money on the side by playing board games on weekends. When you have no ambition, opportunities, or talent, in times of desperation games of chance may appear to be a viable solution. Games can a source of pleasure, as some gamblers tend to participate strictly for the adrenaline rush competition generally brings. Some people can earn livings playing board games. While others still, use the games to test their own self-worth. Gaming manga is possibly the manliest manga out there•because each story features characters entrusting their lives to lady luck.
Gaming manga has a relatively long history. Evolving from the sports and gekiga genres from the late 60’s, gambling titles really took off with the success of Takeshobo’s Kindai Mahjong magazine. This bi-weekly mag has been the source of some of the best gaming comics since the early 70’s. While board game titles occasionally find their way into mainstream publications, very few earn respect from the masses. Shonen titles Hikaru no Go, and to an extent YuGiOh, are possibly the most successful gaming titles in recent memory. No seinen magazine comes even close to Shonen Jump‘s circulation numbers, so making it big in gambling manga means breaking the rules and taking chances whenever possible.
Mangaka Fukumoto Nobuyuki is something of a gambler. Fukumoto launched his storied career as a regular in Kindai Mahjong, penning long narratives based on gamblers in post-WWII Japan. There is no doubt that Fukumoto has long been a talented writer. His works would eventually be drawn by seinen legend Kawaguchi Kaiji (Eagle and Zipang). Yet, going against all popular conventions of manga design in the 90’s, Fukumoto’s artwork could have prevented him from joining the high rollers of modern manga. To put it bluntly, his designs are 
monstrous. His characters are freakishly angular and long. Fukumoto’s jaws are so long and sharp they would never pass an airport TSA check. Yet, somehow, despite creating ugly manga for a small publisher’s game magazine readers gravitated to his intense storylines. His first big series Ten ran for 14 years and 18 volumes. His two most popular titles Akagi and Kaiji have both been adapted into feature length anime by major anime studio Madhouse. Fukumoto played his hands aggressively and in the end became a big winner for Takeshobo and major manga publisher Kodansha.
In Fukomoto’s legendary gaming manga trilogy Kaiji ~the Ultimate Survivor~, gamers risk their lives on a gambling ship! The men who signed up for this unique cruise have bottomed out. Most of them have huge debts they cannot and will not pay off. Weighing the possibility of working off a debt, with compounding interest, for years (if not decades) would be like debating whether or not they should enter into voluntary slavery. By signing up these participants decided to make the ultimate all-in! 400 “lucky•bCrLf men are given the chance of a lifetime. If they get on a winning streak, they can pay their debt and earn tens of thousands of dollars more. If they lose they might end up as thrown out like human trash.
Now considering how high the stakes are on this hope ship you’d think that the games played would be equally as intense, right. Well this is where Fukumoto gambles again. In the world of gaming sometimes the easiest games, the ones with the most primitive rules, are of ten the most intriguing. Imagine having to play rock-paper-scissors for $100,000?! I wouldn’t do it if my life depended on it. In Kaiji, hundreds lost their lives in one night playing this game!
The manga business is a bit of a gamble in general. Even with the number of new professional artists on the decline, creating a successful title means taking risks. Artists and editors collaborate to find new ways to keep readers interested. Manga is always evolving. Gaming manga is no different. In recent years, Kindai Mahjong has published its share of instructional stories to help build a readership that is starting to see more gaming exposure on television and the Internet. Recently they have also caught the otaku bug as they added moe titles to cash in on the AkibaKei sector.
Shueisha’s 81 Diver might not fully utilize Fukumoto’s theory of gaming manga —”the more insane, the more interesting•bCrLf— but it does take into consideration how popular culture can influence even the oldest of concepts. In his latest manga, Shibata Yokusaru (Air Master) infuses otaku culture with the 1500-year-old game of Japanese chess making the game accessible to the hundreds of thousands of young male readers of Weekly Young Jump. Main character, Sugata Kentarou, would possibly be one of the people Shibata would be targeting. The young manga is a talented shougi player. His current record stands at 182-0 as an amateur. In his mind he is only a step away from turning pro. But that final step is a huge one. He has to overcome the Akiba no Uke-shi, Nakashisu Soyo. The buxom amateur chess witch of Akihabara takes on all gamers looking to put down money for a chance to fondle her breasts!
Sugata fails miserably. But he does not let defeat overwhelm him. He decides to start fresh. With earnings he has saved over his winning streak, he hires a maid to clean up his apartment and vows to turn pro after some study and research. This being an otaku-centric manga his research takes him through the shougi version of maniac road. He takes on homeless former pros in their Soto-Kanda Park shanty towns. He challenges a shougi mangaka in a Denny’s. Even the maid he hired turns out to be a shougi player. Victory means diving into the game with burning resolve and its rewards in this manga are based entirely on moe.
Maids and A-boys are trendy right now, but eventually the industry will forget about them like the Korean wave. Bishojo fan service, though, has never seen a decline in its popularity. Knowing this SquareEnix put their money on the beautiful high school girls of Kobayashi Ritz’s Saki. Sponsored by the Japan Professional Mahjong League and is supervised pro mahjong idol sisters Nikaidou Aki (4-dan) and Rumi (3-dan), Saki attempts to make the game respectability in spite of its ties to illegal gambling . The magazine that runs this manga already features bikini-clad teens on their covers, so the logical gaming progression would be cute girls in sailor suits hanging out around a mahjong table where they would live out teen fantasies. The girls of Saki come together in a very shonen manner. Chance unites them; competition inspires them; and through competition friendship blossoms. Having girls in these roles though adds a little bit of spice to what is a simple mix. These competitive girls almost cry when they lose. They get so emotional when they win their thighs quiver. One of them even needs to carry around a stuffed animal to calm her nerves. On the surface this manga is pure cuteness, almost to a shojo degree, but the games they play are cut-throat and none of them want to lose on their way to the High School National Mahjong Championships. Furthermore, the main character’s motivations for joining the mahjong team — to one day face-off against her estranged mahjong champ older sister! Hard-boiled bishojo!!
To me, gaming manga is the ultimate in seinen — entertaining, stimulating, and educational. They provide a cheap smart thrill without the stresses of reality attached. Gaming manga is tantamount to escapism in a world where unemployment and poverty is on the rise. No one who reads these titles could ever wager their lives like the characters in Akagi (lead character Shigeru had a history of playing Russian roulette and participated in a “chicken run•bCrLf at least once in his career as a pro gambler). Some people might learn a trick or two from the manga they read but they will never learn the “Hand of God.•bCrLf In the end gaming manga readers live on. We avoid the long-shots in favor of playing simple games of uno, while hoping to someday get lucky and metaphorically “draw 4•bCrLfin the game of life.
[Excerpted from the June 2008 issue of Otaku USA Magazine.]
